


I Saw Seven Wordless Ones

by BoPeepWithNoSheep



Series: I Saw Seven Wordless Ones [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast), The Adventure Zone: Balance (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Minor blupjeans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-27 00:16:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16691689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoPeepWithNoSheep/pseuds/BoPeepWithNoSheep
Summary: Seven Wordless Ones and the Keeper of their stories.





	1. Barold J. Bluejeans

Barry knows five things in life. His name is Barold J. Bluejeans, he’s missing time, he loves rubies, he has an ache deep in his chest that never ceases, and the Madame Director protects him from The Man With No Face. 

Most of the time he spends in his lab, the Director keeps him close, they’re right off of her own private quarters. He does--Well, he does things there, mostly he can’t remember them he just lets his hands roam equipment and his feet guide him from project to project. Sometimes things, quite literally, blow up in his face and when he wakes up next his head is pounding with static and The Director is never far.

She combs fingers through his hair and the motion feels comforting and wrong because the hands are too bony, the nails too blunt. He doesn’t know why The Director is the only one who’s ever done this, it shouldn’t feel so wrong. He shouldn’t feel wrong for wishing for familiarity, but in the end, it always sends his head spinning for days. Next thing he knows he’ll wake up next in the infirmary with The Director sleeping in the chair beside his bed her staff gripped loosely and a barrier around the two of them. The taste of red magic lingers in the air for hours.

How does he know what red tastes like? 

One day The Director brings two people into his lab, a woman and her son and lets them root around his workstations. He frowns because those are  _ his _ projects. He makes his complaints quite known, the most vocal he’s been in months and it’s only the pained expression on The Director’s face that quiets him. He bristles in the corner before he finally sets himself pacing until his legs bring him to a random station. 

He’s angry, this is his lab, she gave it to him and now she’s letting strangers wander through it. He can’t remember being so angry, he tastes red as his hands' fiddle with components, electricity and static rage in his skull and his awareness begins to fade in and out. Crimson waves of magic ebb and flow at his ankles, he wants to step forward and let himself be submerged in it but he can’t swim.

Out of the corner of his eye a hand reaches across his desk, one of the strangers attempting to snatch the ruby from his hand. The electricity flares but before he can so much as turn to face The Stranger a soft, calming light fills his brain up and pushes out the red tide. He sees The Director’s barrier come up around him even as he slumps against his desk.

Everything goes white, then he wakes up in the infirmary with The Director at his side. 

At some point, The Director leaves him with The Strangers. They mostly ignore him, leave him to wander his lab and only go in to pilfer from it when he wanders into The Director’s champers and collapses on her sofa. They’ve slept in the same room as long as he can remember because Barry can’t sleep alone. The silence makes the static so much more jarring, at least when he can hear The Director breathing across the room he can pretend he doesn’t feel so alone. With her departure Barry’s sleeping patterns turn more and more erratic, he sleeps when his body can no longer remain awake. 

She’s gone for a long time, Barry doesn’t know how long exactly but she comes back different. He almost doesn’t recognize her, at first he’s ready to rail against this New Stranger, not even one brought to him by The Director, but foisted upon him by  _ Outsiders _ but then-- 

Then he sees the trembling of her chin, the utter dejection of her shuttered posture, the despair swirling in eyes he would know anywhere. For a brief moment, silver light overpowers red and a well of deep, chest aching concern envelopes his entire being as he rushes her. Barry pulls her into his arms, pets her newly shorn hair soft and prickly against his fingers. For just a moment, Barry  _ remembers _ , “Lucretia, what happened to you?” 

She sobs, inconsolable and shivering and repeats again and again  _ ‘The bell, the bell, the bell.’  _

After that, The Director finds more strangers. Some are fine, others he hates almost as much as the First Strangers, but all of  _ them _ stay out of his lab. When he hears the clicking of shoes instead of the soft patter of The Director’s slippers, Barry assumes the intruder is one such stranger who hasn’t been told The Rules. Barry practically spits venom at them and earns a sputtering noise in reply as The Stranger seems quite taken aback when Barry doesn’t even look up from his work. 

“Barold. J. Bluejeans?” 

The Man repeats his name back and  _ that _ gets Barry’s attention--Is he mocking him? Barry turns, a sapphire clutched in one fist and a ruby in the other but gasps at what stands before him--An imposing figure in all black, A Man With No Face, only an  _ almost _ inhuman skull. Barry does not know how he knows the skull is not that of a human he only  _ does _ . 

The man repeats his name a third time, taking a cautious step forward and before Barry’s eyes a dark scythe with a blade that shines like opalite flashes into the man's outstretched palm. Barry freezes, the sapphire crystal clatters to the ground but he holds the ruby close to his chest as he scrambles back. He falls over his desk and hits the ground hard, groaning but never ceasing his movements to flee.

The man follows him, steady paced with confusion lacing his brow--Barry is also very confused, but fear overwhelms that and the ruby pressed to his heart feels red hot. Electricity and static buzz throughout his entire body and Barry sees Red for exactly fifteen seconds before the door to his lab slams open with a resounding thud.

“Barry!” 

The Director screams as she throws up a barrier around him with one hand while the other raises her staff to send a magic missile so massive at The Man With No Face that Barry watches his scythe, the arm holding it, and half of his chest  _ disintegrate _ under the immense force. The man  _ screams _ , and even within The Director’s calming barrier red light twitches under Barry’s fingertips sparking tiny flames to dance around the ruby he still clasps so desperately. 

The Director squares her shoulders, slight in stature but holding more power than Barry has ever witnessed in one  _ human _ , his brain sticks on the word human--It’s a thought for later if it doesn’t drift with his terror. If he can just remember. 

The Man With No Face staggers to his feet, one cheekbone is cracked and an empty eye socket caved. Barry watches with utter fascination as the flesh around his thoracic cavity begins to knit itself back together. However, before it can do more than twitch a few organs back together The Director raises her staff and a sphere appears around The Man With No Face. Instantly, the healing--Barry isn’t sure it’s healing but he isn’t sure why and the static in his brain won’t let him think--stops and The Man looks alarmed.

The Director is at Barry’s side the instant the man is contained, cooing softly and patting him down for injuries. She glances up at the faceless man periodically, who floats banging one-handed against The Director’s shimmering barrier. The Man says something that makes The Director’s expression darken and she holds out her hand flat before slowly closing it into a fist, each movement shrinking The Man’s sphere as he shouts louder, bangs against the sphere harder until his pleas seem to do something and she stops.

 

She doesn’t expand his bubble back to its proper size, leaves him partially crushed and well partially bodied in general. The Director stands after assisting Barry up so he’s sitting on one of his desks. She approaches the man, lets her staff clack pointedly against the ground with each step. When she is before his prison she snaps her fingers with a flourish and summons a regal looking chess set upon one of his workstations. The next snap has The Man’s arm phasing through the barrier but only up to his shoulder. 

He squawks something, flails indignantly but the Director only stares him down and gestures towards the board.

They play for hours.

The Director wins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can tell, basic premise of this fella is each of the different birds as the Wordless One. Not really a plotted fic, not really plans for resolving like??? any of them??? just sort of late night plot bunny that took off and here's what y'all are getting from it.


	2. Magnus Burnsides

Magnus knows four things in life. His name is Magnus, he loves the water, he’s a carpenter, and he would do anything to protect the Madame Director. 

His name is Magnus and he says it often, booms and bellows and sometimes speaks softly when the Director is having a bad time. Wraps his arms around her and whispers and he never understands why it makes her cry  _ harder _ . His name is Magnus and he is A Protector. He is A Rock. His head is filled with water and static tumbling together and giving him headaches. When he looks at large bodies of water, sometimes even The Director’s bathtub his mind aches and he feels like something is missing. 

Something should be swimming  ~~Fischer His Little Nibling~~ and floating and flouncing. Someone, one of the Director’s operatives, a nice green man who’s bigger than he is with long hair sits with him whenever he gets stuck in his thoughts staring into one of the small fountains in the quad. Magnus always forgets the nice man's name by the time he's managed to start spouting out his own again, but it's alright. His new friend never minds much.  

The Nice Green Man tells the Director about it and she has the fountain filled in, replaced with a decorative copse of trees. Magnus misses it and isn’t sure why. 

Magnus knows he’s a carpenter even if he doesn’t know where or how or why he learned. Not a lot of people have the patience for him, he’s big and boisterous and the Director keeps him close. People whisper when he walks anywhere without her, sometimes people come up to him and try and stop him from wandering but Magnus laughs because he’s big and they’re little and he just can’t stay inside where his skull feels like pins and needles and  ~~his sister~~ the Director is crying. 

This is how he learns he’s a carpenter, he’s wandering one day and stumbles upon two women, one of them is grumbling over a large crossbow that looks utterly wrecked to hell. Magnus’ eyes are drawn to the sleek wood of the bow, the carefully measured and tuned lines of its body. He yells his name, to get their attention and reaches enthusiastically towards the bow. 

Both women startle when they notice him, one of them cursing outright and the other looking around suddenly, presumably for the Director. When they find neither hide nor hair of her they approach carefully, the taller woman holding her crossbow carefully out of his range. Much to Magnus’ irritation. 

Neither of them really expect Magnus’ next move, and to be honest, he isn’t either, but he’s close enough to the blue woman that he can reach out and grab one of her daggers. There’s a yelp of surprise and she tries to yank it back but again, Magnus is Strong and while she does grab a hold of his arm he just sort of lifts her and keeps walking towards a nearby tree.  

There’s a sturdy, low hanging branch there that practically  _ sings _ to Magnus. 

He hacks it down in two powerful swings, heedless of the yelling woman attached his arm. The knife isn’t made for whittling, he’s not positive what a whittling knife looks like exactly but it doesn’t feel like this one. There’s a lot of yelling but Magnus is good at not paying attention to noise ringing in his ears so instead, he sits and carves. At some point, the smaller woman drops off his arm and settles in front of him. Her tail flicks back and forth and she eyes her knife in his hands. The bigger woman barks out a few commands but Magnus can’t remember listening to anyone but the Director so he ignores her. 

They sit in silence for some amount of time, long enough that the sun is almost setting when Magnus is finally pleased with his project. He smiles and holds out the newly carved lath, he’d had to eyeball it since she hadn’t just let him  _ see _ the stupid thing, but that’s not his fault. It’s a nice lath, he’s not sure why he knows that but his  _ bones _ know it. 

Both women are just as surprised as he feels inside, and when they walk him back to the Director’s dome they pull her aside to talk while he paces the room checking all of the exits and entrances in a habit he’s not sure why he has. The Director is the strongest person he knows, but if anyone could sneak up on her they’d have to deal with Him and that feels right. 

The next day The Director brings him presents, or rather one really big present. It’s a room near the big gumball machine, and when Magnus steps into it and smells varnish and wood shavings something in his great big heart settles for the first time in as long as he can remember. 

His head is quiet and he smiles, “Thanks, Luce.” 

He doesn’t notice when The Director drops her staff and covers her mouth with both hands to keep from crying out. He’s too busy running his hands over all of the beautiful carving tools laid before him. He lets his limbs guide him, finally finally _ finally _ free from the incessant buzzing! The work is perhaps a little clumsy for it, and he knicks his hand once and The Director almost makes him stop but then she looks down at his project and her words die in her throat. 

Magnus smiles and presents her with the little aspen duck, and she accepts it with shuddering hands. 

Magnus has a big heart and bigger hands, most of the Bureau knows that if you catch Magnus away from the Director and ask him to help out with something he’ll be more than happy to do so. The Director doesn’t seem to mind when it’s harmless things, he helps move beds in the infirmary or plants a tree in the quad and smiles because it’s good to work with his hands. Besides, he gets dibs on the best branches of any trees he helps plant--He made that rule himself and it’s a good one. 

One day a man with a voice like music and white noise asks him to carry something out of The Director’s office. 

Magnus likes his voice, it’s familiar but it doesn’t make his ears buzz the way that The Director’s sometimes does. He laughs and fills the Director’s office with chatter, it’s nice to have it something besides silent for once. Magnus wonders if he can invite this man back more often, they both work for The Director so she must approve of him too. 

The longer they stay in The Director’s office the more questions The Musical Man barks at Magnus, just a little sharper, a little higher pitched and it makes Magnus frown. He’s helping the drow out of generosity and he grumbles as much in his own particular way as he sets himself in doorway deeper into The Director’s quarters when The Musical Man tries to push past. 

Her office is one thing, plenty of people visit The Director’s office even when she isn’t in. Guards on patrol, seekers picking up paperwork, a few janitors tidying wastebaskets.  _ No one _ goes into her private chambers--Magnus won’t allow it. 

The Man clearly doesn’t expect it when Magnus lifts him by his tabard and tosses him out of The Director’s office. He hits the adjacent wall with a resounding crash, Magnus rushes out and stands above him eyes narrowed as he again grabs The Man and drags him out, heedless of his flailing _.  _

All of the noise is enough to garner some degree of attention as bureau members spill onto the quad and The Man finally manages to wiggle free. The noise of the crowd is deafening, for once the din in Magnus’ head is overpowered by the clamor outside of it. Confusion is clear in the minds of everyone present--What’s wrong with Sweet Harmless Magnus? Why is Brian frantic and frenzied and screaming about lies and secret weapons and staves. 

The soft thud of softer slippers and the clack of a walking stick calls an instant halt to the uproar as The Director walks calmly down the sidewalk, settling herself beside Magnus and looking down at her employee with an imperious gaze. The Man’s eyes lock onto her staff and he screams again and moves. He pulls a wand and magic missiles are fired nearly point blank but Magnus is there in the blink of an eye. He takes the blows with a deep wheeze, but this feels natural. 

The Director calls his name as he hits the ground and rolls with the force. Clearly, no one had been expecting the way that Magnus pops back up off the grass, heedless of his bleeding side. He walks ceaselessly, takes another hit of _something_ but for every step he takes forwards The Man takes two uneasy steps back. Closer and closer to the edge, Magnus’ mind whirls with possibility, he remembers once, a woman leaping from the side of a ship. The thought echoes in his brain now, less joyous and more ominous. Magnus _shoves_ and The Man who shrieks, his voice is less musical now more like nails on a chalkboard as the spider tumbles down and down. 

He tried to hurt The Director. No one hurts The Director when Magnus is around to  _ put them down. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's Maggie!!! This was actually the one I wrote first before this turned into an Actual Fic Thing and not just a random stream of consciousness writing piece.


	3. Merle Highchurch

Merle knows three things in life. His name is Merle, plants love him, and he wants the Madame Director to be happy. 

The Madame Director is the star to which he orbits, never far from her for very long. He’s drawn to her like a moth to a flickering lamp and that feels alright. Static buzzes around him, a companion so constant he’s no longer sure whether it’s unwelcome or not. It keeps bad thoughts away, in its own manner of speaking because it gives him a sign of when he needs to poke and prod and when other things are better left alone.

The Director, usually, needs to be poked and prodded. Gently guided with a soft word or excited exclamation. He leads her to small joys like waking up to flowers braided in her hair when she’s fallen asleep at her desk or bringing her terrible tea that he somehow knows will stop the shooting pain in her temples even as she grumbles about its flavor.

Merle smiles and whistles and sprinkles his little bits of joy wherever he can reach.

There’s something wrong with him, he’s not exactly sure why but the crackling in his ears and under his fingertips isn’t normal. The fact that sometimes he feels like he’s being watched or hears soft reassuring whispers when the static gets too much, those things aren’t normal. Merle knows what normal is supposed to be like, doesn’t remember it really but there’s an echo of a thought. The same way his hands glide through the motions of bandaging petty injuries or smiling when he sees someone frown. There’s a constancy in it, steady on and going and Merle lets himself go with it.

The Director pretty much gives him free rein over the moonbase, considering he never strays very far. Most of his time is spent tending to the patches of greenery he’s introduced to the quad. Where once there had only been scattered trees Merle leaves flowers, shrubs, and ivy. No one knows where he gets the seeds from--which makes Merle laugh, like he needs _seeds_ to grow plants. He has love to do that.

Love is important. Love needs to be tended so it doesn’t wilt or fester because it can and sometimes it will. The Director has a lot of love in her heart but it’s also pinned between despair and desperation more powerful than any weed killer or poison known to man. The Director isn’t the only person like that though, she collects them. Gathers up those with holes in their heart and builds them up so they can stand on their own two feet while she falters.

The Director brings home a half-elf one day with despair swimming in his blood like static swims in Merle’s. He’s drawn to him almost immediately, greets the half-elf with a cheery wave and a proffered cherry blossom. He almost gets a smile. Almost.

Merle’s worked with less. 

He spends months trailing the half-elf when he’s not spending his time with The Director or tending to his moon gardens. Here and there he eeks out a smile or a laugh from the downtrodden musician and it fills Merle with a sense of accomplishment that feels _right._ He’s seen it, he doesn’t remember exactly, but he knows where that sliding scale of despair and nihilism ends and he won’t let those around him fall to it if he has the power to prevent it this time. 

So he spreads a little joy, makes some people laugh or smile or really just feel something besides despair because he can’t stand it. Can’t stand the feeling, can’t stand the way it itches into people’s bones and infects their souls. Despair is insidious and corrupting and maybe flowers aren't the cure but it’s a treatment and Merle knows that if you ignore a wound, if you don’t treat it, it’ll only fester.

The Director doesn’t always know what to do with him, he flits where he wants to go. Mostly wherever the flowers lead him, grass tickles at his ankles and he pulls off his shoes to dig his toes into the mulch. It’s not the same up on the moonbase, the soil here is a little disconnected but the flowers still whisper to him when he traces their petals, trees still preen at his touch.

When the static gets overwhelming he always finds himself drawn to the gardens. One moment he’s engulfed and cradling his head then the next thing he knows he looks ups and his bare feet have managed to carry him to the nearest plant, be it potted or otherwise. It always makes him laugh, just a little, to watch the little leaves tumble to and fro the reach him through the static.

They greet him like a friend, arms outstretched reaching through the white noise.

Things on the moonbase take a lively turn when The Director brings in new recruits and lets them have their run of the place. He’s still a little miffed with the biggest one, who had trampled his petunias but he’d apologized after he’d realized. The elf is a little better, had complimented the potted plants he kept scattered around The Director’s office. The smaller human man though, Merle thinks he might be the favorite since he’d knelt down when Merle had gestured for it and allowed Merle to gently tuck a yellow rose behind his ear. 

The nerdy human had seemed downright _baffled_ by the dwarf’s action but he’d let Merle do it and had even laughed when he spotted himself in the reflective surface of the bigger human’s shield. It made Merle grin because he recognized loneliness when he saw it and it wafted off this human, like spores off an agitated fungus. 

There’s a hubbub about the moonbase when Merle walks in on The Director, hands resting in her hands. It’s the midsummer solstice festival soon, Merle’s been growing plenty of flowers for the maypoles but even with the cheerier atmosphere beginning to envelop the moon melancholy still lingers with the Director’s form like an icy chill.

Merle watches her for a moment before abruptly heaving himself up onto her desk. She glances at him for a split second but merely sighs. It’s been getting harder, trying to shake her from these moods that come more and more often. She’s always been prone to a little bit of gloom, the plight of literature majors, he’d teased her once. He reaches out gently, like he’s trying to comfort a startled animal and not a grown woman and takes her hand in his.

“You can still choose joy,” He reminds her softly as he presses just a little bit of healing magic into her hands. He knows how bad her arthritis gets when she’s stressed, “You still deserve it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merle was a bit tough because I ended up getting very rambly, I hope this one lives up to the other two so far.


	4. Taako

Taako knows two things in life. His name is Taako and that he loses things a lot but the Madame Director is always there to help him find them. 

Taako lives in the sky, which is pretty cool except for when he forgets the way from one end of the moonbase to the other and none of the stars make sense so he just lays down and sleeps wherever he gets tired. The Director usually finds him, she used to lift him up and piggyback him to their room--but then one day she comes home missing time and can't anymore. Someone had stolen her years and Taako can just barely understand that, as a human, that’s Bad for The Director. 

He doesn’t want The Director to die, she’s the only thing he hasn’t lost yet. 

He’d lose his own head if it wasn’t attached to his shoulders, he loses his hats constantly--but The Director keeps buying him more so it’s alright. He loses and finds them, though mostly it’s other people finding them in strange places. Which is because Taako has a talent for getting into strange places, flexible and spry he shimmies up trees and domes and leaves a trail of accessories behind him. 

Sometimes it’s for safekeeping, he has a stash of the shiny coins The Director keeps in her desk that the stupid gnome always asks him how he keeps getting a hold of. Taako laughs every time as if he’d even _acknowledge_ someone who isn’t The Director. Some of them try anyway, to interact with him but at best he ignores them, at worst he fixes them with a _withering_ stare until they leave him be. None of them are worth his time, they’re all just going to blend together in the static until they leave or die. 

Except for The Director, she’s the only one that matters. 

The thing is, it isn’t that he’s clingy--He’s not, _absolutely_ not, it’s just that his head isn’t so scrambled when she’s around. Everything is still Too Much a solid seventy percent of the time but the idea of it shifting to a _constant_ drone of white noise is so utterly terrifying that sometimes it leave him shaking. The Director always comforts him, and he thinks that’s good. He needs her, needs her so much for stability, for validation that there’s a world beyond the buzzing in his head sometimes--But the way her own hands tremble, the way she squeezes him too tightly sometimes, Taako thinks she needs him too.

That’s good. If she needs him too she won’t leave him.

Whenever she has to go work off base he gets...antsy is a good word for it, there aren't many of people on the moon that he likes. Really, there isn’t anyone worth his time--and he’s got all the time in the world when The Director is out for a day or a week or _whatever_. He doesn’t work for her, not the same way that her little ants scurry about on the orders of their queen. Sure, he spends a lot of time in the kitchen letting his hands guide him through recipes his brain doesn’t know--but that’s as much for him as it is for the look on the Director’s face when she actually eats a decent meal once in a while.  

There’s a satisfaction in being able to do something right, even if it’s useless as cooking. 

They’re making dinner on Candlenights, or rather, Taako is making a turkey that’s taken patience and hours. The Director had offered her assistance but he’d summarily chased her away from the prep area and into a nearby chair. She’s sipping cocoa, the good kind made with grated chocolate and milk, not water and powder like the _heathens_ in the seeker’s break room. 

As he moves to take the turkey out of the oven the Director begins to stand to assist but Taako waves her away and shushes her for good measure when she attempts to argue. He can’t help but roll his eyes that she’d even offer, Lucretia’s _always_ been a terrible sous chef, he’d rather have his sister. _His sister_ \--Taako frowns as he places the turkey pan carefully on the marble countertops so different from the stainless steel of the Starblaster. 

A thought, fleeting and ephemeral occurs to him and Taako grasps onto it with two shaking hands, “Hey, Creesha, you seen Lup? I-I think I lost her?” 

Creesha? Does he know someone named Creesha? Taako flexes his fingers, fists and flat then back again. _Who’s Lup?_ His hands slide up slowly, mapping out the hat that decorates his head and all of it’s dangling jewels and accessories. He hasn’t lost that so why does he feel like something is missing? 

Clarity slides away just as fast as it had come and Taako’s brows scrunch together. He lost something, he looks to The Director for help but she looks utterly stricken. Her cup of cocoa clatters to the floor with a resounding crash. She whispers his name, a desperate question, and Taako blinks as he repeats it back. Hands flutter through the air, he reads distress in the lines of her face, too many lines but he can’t fix that, she needs him. Needs comfort, needs a steady hand that neither of them has. 

Taako moves forward, tongue clicking and bracelets jingling. She sobs, some word between his name and a stream of apologies. It’s fine because he’s here so she doesn’t have to be upset, he’s not leaving. He’ll never leave and if he’s here, if she still cries about him that means she won’t leave him. 

She can’t leave him. Can’t leave him with a brain that tumbles out of his skull at the drop of a hat. Can’t leave him alone in the static, lost in his own head with a storm rumbling all around him. If he loses her no one will be able to pull him out from under it, he’s selfish but he thinks she is too. She has to be, to keep someone as useless as him around. 

Taako cries and so does the Director, but that’s fine so long as she _just stays_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Taako went to some places I didn't really expect to be totally honest, like the level of codependence between the two caught me off guard but I feel like it made sense so I just sort of rolled with it.


	5. Davenport

Davenport knows one thing. His name is Davenport. 

There is a sense in a task at hand, a balance to rules and strictures and a job to complete. It gives Davenport balance in the neverending storm of static and overwhelming clangor of deficiency. The Madame Director gives him tasks to complete, a schedule to work with and Davenport accomplishes each and every assignment with diligence and flawless precision.

The need for structure ebbs and flows, sometimes he’s not content but he floats somewhere between acceptance and resignation. Those are days that they play chess, or he sings, or any other number of meaningless tasks that he does mostly because he can.

Other days nothing makes sense, he can barely process The Director’s words let alone his own fragmented thoughts that he must translate and retranslate into something meaningful--Only for that meaning to be stolen by a clumsy tongue weighted down by a word robbed of so much meaning it's become white noise.

Employees of the Bureau are kind to him, try to accommodate his needs. He plays cards with Leon, Avi, and Brad and none of them are sore losers about getting beat by a man who can’t even call out his winning hand. He’s good at cards but better at pool, he learns one fateful Saturday night where he ends up with more gold than he really has any use for.

Carey and Killian don’t ever give him condescending looks when he skitters down to the training rooms on occasion. He always flies through the survival stations, ties knots his brain can’t even begin to comprehend but his hands work through with ease, scampers through obstacle courses with complete ease. The two women always congratulate him on his good work, Carey takes a particular tendency to compliment his aim when she spots him juggling a set of knives someone left. His aim isn’t quite as good as he thinks it should be, but it’s probably just that he’s rusty. 

Sometimes, when he doesn’t want to be alone because the static is overwhelming and he needs to remember he’s a  _ person _ he climbs up the side of the largest dome. It’s design is sleek and modern but Davenport is tireless and always manages to make it up to the very top of the dome even if he rips half a dozen holes in his slacks. He just likes to stare out at the horizon, farther and farther past the clouds into the unknown. He can overhear the soft bustle of the moonbase below him and he lets it drown out the static as he savors the feeling of wind in his hair. 

There’s something  _ so perfect _ about that feeling. 

He likes the Bureau as The Director runs it, it’s a tight ship with so many moving parts but each are carefully chosen, all handpicked by The Director. He doesn’t remember when she chose him, but it must have been some time before the Bureau was formally started and he’s glad for it. She has a good people sense, his Director, and that he can be of assistance even with his limitations brings him some semblance of solace against them.

Some days it’s rougher than others like when they lose a member to a relic, their thrall, or those under their possession of it it’s difficult for everyone at the Bureau. They all mourn together, at least and the loss of Brian and Bryan is bittersweet yet tempered by the surprising cause for celebration.

They’ve finally gotten a relic, the gauntlet, after so many years of trying and never succeeding. That it hadn’t been her bureau to succeed is killing her, just a little bit, Davenport thinks. That strangers are the ones who finally tracked down and retrieved The Director’s quarry is a blow to her self-confidence. It’s a good thing, objectively, that they’ve found the relic and better still that The Director has recruited them but something about the trio has put her in more distress than he’s seen in years.

It makes his tail twitch, to see her like this. 

Lucretia runs her hands through her shorn hair, it used to be so long--And she used to be so  _ young  _ but something had stolen her youth and her loqs he had seen her tend to with such care over the century. Davenport feels staggeringly old himself, in this moment. That his youngest charge staggers under the weight of leadership the exact same way he had so many times on that long century. 

Without really thinking he reaches up, snagging her hand and tugging her down. He’s gentle because he recognizes the look in her eyes, not too different from Merle’s that shine when her new but old knees twinge. Nearly entranced, his charge, his youngest shipmate, his last family member crouches before him.

“Davenport?” She whispers softly, desperately as her hands clasp his. She’s scanning his face, staring at him harder than he thinks she’s ever done. A reverent, desperate tone, like a prayer to a dead god. 

The Captain nods, “W-We have a duty, Lucretia, as leaders. To all of th-them, but also to  _ ourselves _ .” 

And he’s speaking to her as The Captain to The Director because he knows she can do this-- _ Knows _ she can lead. He’d pegged her with potential all those decades ago, as a little timid and a lot inexperienced but with so much potential. They’d all had so much potential, and he just wanted to see them  _ thrive _ . 

He still wants her too. Even as the static buzzes back into place, even as his comprehension fuzzes and the world around him dulls just the smallest. Aware but dulled, there but foggier.

“Davenport,” He murmurs softly and watches as her expression wilts and tears well. He feels them prick in his own eyes but stubbornly ignores them, instead choosing to tug her into a hug. She moves with him, but doesn’t lift her arms to return his embrace until Davenport’s tail wraps itself loosely around one of her wrists. He repeats himself, more firmly this time.

“ _Davenport._ ” 

The Director buckles, whether under the weight of his gaze or her power or her guilt Davenport isn’t sure, but he’s satisfied to see her feel  _ something _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love this gnome.


	6. Lup

Lup. Madame Director calls her Lup but the word falls right out of her ears before she can keep it in. Even if she presses her hands against them, hard as she can, closes her eyes tight. Nothing stays in the static. 

She can mimic, repeat brief snippets words like a myna bird. The meaning is lost within moments, but sometimes they linger for a little longer. Swiringl up in her mind’s eye for reasons she doesn’t understand. Words that feel like home, words that feel like rumbling electric storms when they linger too long.

Words she repeats and repeats and repeats until the only thing that can stop them flowing out of her mouth like a waterfall are her own muffling hands.

She can't walk on her own, she lost her leg at some point but she doesn't know when. She thinks she must have had two legs once because she sometimes feels the phantom sensation just below her left thigh. Sometimes she shifts her weight getting up in the morning and almost falls because her muscle memory doesn't know to compensate. Sometimes she thinks she remembers running. 

Sometimes she thinks she remembers falling. 

The Director has a chair made for her, sleek silver and soft blue, so that she can move around on her own. Lup moves constantly, never staying in one place for very long. Her arms are strong, toned from years she can’t remember and they push her wherever the wind leads her. She gravitates towards warmth, because something deep in her chest is cold, a flickering candle that should be a raging hearth.

The candle won’t go out, she doesn’t think, but the chill leaves her feeling sluggish sometimes and manic others. Like if she could just light the world ablaze she could be warm--Gods she misses warm and she can’t even remember it but--

But The Director is warm, it’s not enough but it’s all she has.

There are others, they’re kind to her. The Director would be furious with them if they weren’t. She sees it happen just once, the consequences of a distinct lack of kindness. What happens when one of The Director’s scientists had thought her a burden, an obstacle interfering with the bureau’s leader. Distracting her from glorious purpose.

The scientist approaches Lup only once, all soft words and vying hands. Grasping at Lup's head and turning it this way and that, muttering over tests and control groups and procedures. She has plans, she details then in a way she must think is comforting, the scientist doesn't realize that Lup understands most of the procedure being described. Understands the science, understands the _horror_ of what is being suggested--Or rather, not suggested, what the scientist _plans_ to do to her. Lup wants to escape but the scientist's son has a tight hold on the handles of Lup’s wheelchair. Neither of them put much stock in her stuttering mimicry, in the increasingly distressed way she parrots their words back to them.

The Director finds them struggling to lift her thrashing form onto an examination table. 

Lup thinks the screaming match, words said by both parties that can't be  _ unsaid, i _ s seared into her ears for weeks. It echoes with the ringing of white noise and the red taste of desperation that still lingers in her mouth. Something about the way The Director had icily slipped the silver band from her finger and silently dropped it onto the cold laboratory floor sends a chill down Lup’s spine to even think about. It leaves her twisting at the little ring on her own finger. Her stomach roils at the very idea of doing the same and fills her with such a white-hot sense of dread before the static take over and leaves her with nothing at all. 

The scientist is banned from the moon base, though her son is afforded a lighter sentence, visitation but forbidden from seeing Lup. Forbidden from using his chip to try and  _ fix _ her. 

Some time later, the Madame Director is brushing her hair. The task is not actually something Lup is incapable of but The Director finds it calming and Lup likes the feeling too. It’s comfortable, relaxing enough that the constant roar of static recedes to a dull buzz. Lup sighs, leaning into the touch as she slowly begins to nod off. 

Lucretia adjusts herself beside Lup, they lean against each other for support--Like on bad cycles where Taako, Barry, and Magnus are all gone. In the place where Lup drifts between sleep and meditation, she’s at her most lucid. Sometimes it means she can grasp at straws but sometimes, just sometimes it means she  _ remembers _ . 

Remembers waking up in the cave, knowing nothing, half-dead when Lucretia found her and the gauntlet. When she’d had to cut off Lup’s entire leg, even though it had just been her ankle that was nicked by the poisoned blade. She understood the loss of her limb, she would have done the same for Lucretia if the choices were life or death. Lup doesn’t understand why looking at her friend makes her head hurt. Why trying to clutch at the shreds of her bonds makes her whole brain shutter light then dark like a malfunctioning camera flash.

Lup leans into Lucretia’s arms and tilts her head up so she can see her friend’s face, reaching out and tracing crows feet and frown lines that should be smile lines. Lup whispers, voice hoarse and bleary with half-woken clarity, “I think you broke my brain a little bit, I still love you though.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On a list of things that aren't okay, this is probably not okay but it's fine. I'm Fine. I've dug my grave with this fic and now I have to lay in it.
> 
> Additionally, at some point, I'm gonna post the actual argument between Maureen and Lucretia from Lucretia's pov because it's SAVAGE.


	7. Lucretia

The thing is, as the chronicler, as the journal keeper, Lucretia knows so much. The suffering of her home plane. The suffering of every plane they’ve failed to save. The suffering of her family. The suffering her family has inflicted upon this world. 

The suffering  _ she _ almost thought to inflict on them. 

Lucretia can’t trust herself-- _ Lucretia knows too much.  _

Words are a dangerous weapon, especially her own so finely honed after a century of scrivening, so Lucretia settles on a plan of action. It isn’t her first plan, that one had frightened her--Had left her sleepless for nights on end as she frantically tried to justify her reasoning--Left her making copies and more copies and third copies of her journals because the first hadn’t been thorough enough and the second batch too thorough. Then she had the third, perfect set of one hundred journals. 

She almost does it, almost empties them all into Fischer's tank but the thought of another cycle sixty-five, suffering by herself without her family, without even the knowledge that in a single year she’ll have them back. It’s  _ too much .  _

Lucretia makes a new plan, writes a new set of journals. She copies down every detail of every variation of every single one of her plans. Any fragment that she can think her family can use. She spends ages compiling, every plan, every thought, every shred of anything worth keeping from her mind.

Because she fears that perhaps her mind is not worth keeping. 

Feeblemind is already such a powerful spell, but it doesn’t take too much to  _ twist _ it. Perhaps if she were using it on someone else what she does wouldn’t be possible but Lucretia’s mind has always been her sandbox. Her wit and meticulous nature, both her greatest weapon and simultaneously her biggest enemy, now that she can no longer trust herself to keep it contained. 

Lucretia takes away her own words. Takes her power and shoves it down deep and locks it away into a little corner of her brain where it can’t hurt anyone she loves. Leaves all of the words she can think of to save everyone for her family to find. Lucretia lays down as she preps the spell, she has theories upon theories, plans within plans but none of them will be hers to make any longer.

They are her family’s and they’ll be safer that way. 

Maybe there’s something to be said for The Hunger, for peace found in oblivion but she’s only selfish enough to want it for herself, the rest of her family deserves better. The rest of her family deserves to live in this world they settled upon. Deserves to have a plan that works and doesn’t tear them apart. This is perhaps a setback in that, in a way, because she knows that they’ll mourn her loss but she isn’t dead. She’ll be something more like  _ sleepwalking _ _._ A rest from the pain and the intrusive thoughts that pervade her mind, thoughts too dangerous to let out. That must be locked away before her clever mind can will them into existence because she is nothing if not persistent. 

It’s either wiping herself clean or wiping her family. Hurting herself or hurting her family, perhaps in another world, one where she’s a little more desperate and a little less overwhelmed she would choose to take the burden upon herself--But she doesn’t. 

Lucretia just wants to  _ let go .  _

Maybe she’ll wake up in a year, a decade, another century and her brain will reset but she hopes not, prays not because this is too much. Everything is getting  _ too much _ and she can’t abandon the world but she can’t allow it to be destroyed either. 

This is her happy medium, helping but preventing any further harm.

She leaves little seeds, the way for her family to untangle her spell, but they’re hidden among every step of her plan, breadcrumbs towards the relics and her shield. It feels like a minor betrayal, to force their hands in this way but they’ll do this for her. With Lup already potentially dead or trapped somewhere, it’s her only option if she wants them to do this and not just leave on the Starblaster, to cut their losses and restart in another plane. 

So Lucretia writes in  _ excruciating _ detail the level in which her spell has utterly shredded her mind so finely that even the power of the Bond Engine won’t be able to piece it back together. Their only hope to save her is to save this plane. If they give up, if they abandon it in spite of everything even she isn’t sure what will happen, but she cannot imagine it will be pretty. 

She leaves one final note, pinned carefully to the front of her dress before she casts her spell. 

_ ‘I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore. You can’t fix me, but you can fix this world, so please promise me you will. I’ve left what you need in my journals, I’m sorry that I could not leave you all with more.  _

_ I love you all, I always have and I always will.’  _

_ -Lucretia  _

Then, laying in the the soft halo of Fischer’s beautiful bioluminescence, Lucretia finally rests.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it folks! Well, not fully because y'all know I'm probably gonna make a side story fic to write up blurbs from each of these aus but like THIS PART IS DONE and I'm emotionally compromised and if you want to yell at me, I want to yell at me, or request and specific scenes from any of these verses you can hit me up on my tumblr bopeepwritingsheep

**Author's Note:**

> As you can tell, basic premise of this fella is each of the different birds as the Wordless One. Not really a plotted fic, not really plans for resolving like??? any of them??? just sort of late night plot bunny that took off and here's what y'all are getting from it.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [flightless bird, i know you're hurt / it's not the life that you deserve](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16697998) by [polyphobiaa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/polyphobiaa/pseuds/polyphobiaa)




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